Quillblade

by Ben Chandler

  She came awake instantly, wild-eyed. Her gaze softened as she recognised him.

  ‘Why don’t you go to your bunk?’ He had to shout to be heard over the wind. Should he ask her about the tattoo? Then he’d have to admit he’d taken a peek, and he wasn’t about to do that!

  She unwound herself from her knotted position. ‘I sleep in the galley and they were being too loud.’ How many times had Lenis been forced to find his night’s rest out in the cold, or dangerously close to the heart of a pounding factory machine? He felt a pang of sympathy and sat beside her. Namei’s body was icy against his side. ‘I like it here, anyway,’ she added and pressed into him.

  Lenis was glad the wind had already reddened his cheeks. ‘Where do you come from?’ His voice cracked unexpectedly.

  Namei looked up at him and he suddenly felt warm. He also felt like putting his arm around her. Instead he settled for looking absolutely anywhere but into her eyes.

  ‘I was born in the village of Basho no Megami in Tengoku domain. It’s a small place in the shadow of Mount Futagoza, near the temple of Kichi.’

  ‘Did you like it there?’ Lenis shifted slightly, as if stretching his arm, and Namei huddled into his side. She nodded into his shoulder as he brought his arm down stiffly. ‘Why did you leave?’

  Lenis felt Namei go rigid and, when she spoke, her words were stilted. ‘Lord Shôgo demanded my parents enlist in his armies. I was very young and I had no grandparents to take me in when my mother and father were recruited. I went with them when they moved to the village of Rôhi in Taiyô domain. The Warlord built the village on the border of the Wastelands. The Demons used to come a lot.’

  ‘Both of your parents were recruited?’

  She nodded, playing with the end of the scarf she wore around her neck. ‘My mother and father were both descended from great warrior families.’

  ‘Were? What happened to them?’ Lenis asked so quietly he thought she wouldn’t hear. He almost hoped she didn’t, because he feared he knew the answer.

  ‘They were butchered by Demons.’

  Lenis’s mouth went dry. An image came to his mind – the blood-red Demon he had encountered on the way back from Seisui’s temple, Akamusaborikû, laughing over two faceless bodies. He could feel Namei’s grief and anger. He wanted to say something that would make it less horrible, but he couldn’t think of anything.

  ‘What happened to your parents?’ she asked.

  The question took him by surprise and he answered it more brutally than he would have otherwise. ‘My sister and I never knew our mother, and our father sold us into slavery when we were four. I wish he had been butchered by Demons.’

  Namei looked up at him again and he wanted to take back the words. What did a Puritan know of Demons? He had grown up in a land free of the Wasteland taint while Namei had lived on the very borders of it, had lost her parents because of it. He wouldn’t have minded, just then, if a gust of wind had thrown him over the railing.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The strength of her pity was dizzying. Lenis looked down at her, baffled.

  ‘Why? What happened to your parents was terrible.’

  ‘Yes, it was, but at least I knew they loved me. If it were not for their service to the Warlord I never would have been chosen as cabin girl for the Hiryû.’ She looked away and then back again. Lenis couldn’t sort through the welter of emotions radiating off her. ‘And then I wouldn’t have met you,’ she went on more quickly, ‘or your sister, or the captain, or Lord Knyght.’

  They sat in a silence Lenis found awkward, but for some reason he didn’t want to break it. He could feel Namei’s body growing warm beside him as her inner turmoil began to settle.

  He felt the stirrings of something then that he had never felt before, and he wasn’t sure if it was coming from him or Namei. It was like what he had begun to feel back in Seisui’s temple with the captain, only different, more intense.

  ‘I should go and check on Aeris!’ Lenis all but jumped away from Namei. The cold air hit his now exposed side, ripping the unfamiliar sensations away. ‘Would you like to use my bunk?’ His voice squeaked again, but he rushed on. ‘It’s always warm in the engine room.’

  Namei stood up more slowly. ‘That would be nice.’ She followed him to the rear hatch.

  The walk across the frosty deck made short work of what was left of the warmth they had just shared, but Lenis didn’t want to take Namei via the fore hatch. That would mean passing the three men in the galley, and he didn’t want them gawking as he led Namei to his room.

  When they were safely below decks and in the engine room, Lenis smoothed out his blankets and Namei lay down. He went to check on the Bestia in their hutch and the sound of Namei’s chattering teeth gave him an idea. He picked Ignis up and brought him over to the bunk. The flame Bestia curled into a tight ball against Namei’s chest.

  The cabin girl squeezed him close. ‘He’s nice and warm,’ she said groggily and then promptly fell asleep. The steady sound of her breathing blended with the droning of the engines. Lenis was smiling as he went to check on Aeris.

  Missy had never thought the sight of an airship could make her so happy. As soon as Raikô had let her go she had sped south, back along the line that kept her connected to her own body. The Hiryû was right in front of her now, close enough she could actually feel her brother, and the others. Just a little closer ...

  The golden cord snapped taut, reverberating with Raikô’s bestial cry of rage, jerking Missy back inexorably to the north.

  Over the next two days Lenis watched the lands of Sora domain sweep by beneath them. When he wasn’t in the engine room with the Bestia or sitting by his sister’s side in the doctor’s cabin, he was on deck with Namei, scanning the skies for signs of pursuit. In truth they spent less time watching the skies than they did playing with the Bestia. One game they invented involved getting Atrum to cloak himself somewhere on the airship while Lenis and Namei tried to find him by feel. Sometimes they’d get one of the Bestia to bite into a strip of cloth and run off with it while Lenis and Namei and the other Bestia chased after them and tried to get it back. This usually ended in a stalemate as two or more players inevitably ended up in a tugging match over the rag. The winner was the one left with the largest piece.

  Lenis’s favourite game didn’t involve the Bestia at all. It was a word game Namei came up with that helped Lenis to learn Shinzôn. The cabin girl was a far better teacher than Missy, who usually became so impatient with Lenis that she’d give up before he could learn anything.

  Meanwhile, the Hiryû had flown inland, avoiding the Wasteland-ravaged coast, and as the threat of Demons receded, so did Lenis’s wariness. Even though the Warlord could still send airships after them, the whole of Tsuki domain lay between them and the Warlord’s influence.

  Under different circumstances, Lenis might have enjoyed the flight. Sora domain seemed like an exciting place to be after the confines of Itsû and the airship, and Lenis liked spending time with Namei. Besides his Bestia, she was the only one who could drag him away from his sister’s side. During their second night in Sora, with the Hiryû moored to an airdock in a place called Chûkanmachi, Lenis and the cabin girl had hidden while Hiroshi had bellowed for Namei to come and help with the dishes. The cook searched the entire airship before climbing up to find them, laughing, in the crow’s nest. Hiroshi had scolded them both soundly and made Lenis help with the pots, but they didn’t mind.

  Despite the bitter northern climate, more noticeable now that it was almost winter, Sora domain was by far the busiest place in Shinzô that Lenis had yet seen. Itsû had been a large city. As the Warlord’s capital it rivalled the imperial city of Nochi in size and wealth, but here in Sora the whole domain was alive. Airships filled the air and most of them were foreign. Without Missy to act as communications officer, the lookout, Andrea, rarely left the crow’s nest. She had to ensure they didn’t
run into another vessel and she also kept a nervous watch for the Warlord’s banners.

  Occasionally Lucis was needed to send messages via spurts of light, an old-fashioned form of communication that transformed small words and letters into flashing sequences. This was rare, though. Few of the people flying seemed to understand the old communication system, and Lenis’s grasp of Shinzôn was so rudimentary as to be almost useless. Still, they didn’t crash into anybody, so that was something.

  Though too rocky and cold to be much use as agricultural land, Sora was a hub of foreign trade. Lenis hadn’t seen so many airbarges since he had left Pure Land. They were much wider vessels than airships and had two or even three mast-shafts supporting the massive wing balloons needed to support their weight. Most were flat-bottomed things built for carrying large amounts of cargo, though even here Lenis saw a few experimental models with speed modifications. Airbarges were infamously slow.

  Tenjin had told Lenis that the once impoverished Yûgata clan that ruled the domain had grown wealthy almost as soon as the first Puritan airship had landed on its shores. The records keeper had also repeated the rumour that many Yûgata sons had forsaken their positions to help build the clan’s wealth, and had founded many of Sora’s richest trade families in the process.

  Try as he might, however, Lenis could never quite relax. Thinking about his sister was hard enough. But no one could tell him if Raikô had been attacked by Demons or not, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do about the World Tree. On top of that he had to avoid Arthur’s thunderous brow. Lenis never heard the first officer argue with the captain, but he knew the Kystian believed Karasu and Chûritsu had taken the dragon egg from the temple, and that the captain had made the wrong decision in heading to Ost instead of tracking them down.

  The captain’s silence was worse than anything else. Would he sell Lenis when they reached Yukitoshi, their last port in Shinzô? What would Captain Shishi do with Missy if he got rid of Lenis? Whenever Lenis was above decks with Namei he kept an eye out for the captain, afraid he would order Lenis back to his post.

  It was now the morning after their third night in Sora and no such order had come. The Hiryû was moored to an airdock in Yukitoshi, the capital city of Sora and the home of the Yûgata clan. The capital was built at the base and partway up the side of a mountain on the northernmost tip of the domain. Namei told him that, on a very clear day, you could make out the island of Tengoku to the south-east, where she was born and where Emperor Botanichi lived in his palace at Nochi. Today had dawned anything but clear. A snowstorm had blown in from the east and left the crew stranded in the capital. The strong winds and driving sleet threatened the integrity of the balloons that kept the Hiryû aloft. The captain had ordered them stowed until the blizzard had moved on.

  Battling the weather to secure the balloons made for an uncomfortable morning. Lenis knew that Sora domain was far enough north that snowstorms were common for much of the year, but he hadn’t realised winter was so close. It was a sombre fact that affected the mood of everyone on board. The seas to the north of Sora were difficult to traverse during the best of weather; in winter they were impassable. The taint of the Wastelands had somehow spread into the oceans, wrenching the once predictable patterns of their tides askew. It took a gifted helmsperson to manoeuvre a vessel through those Demon-wracked waters. Reaching Ost seemed like an impossible dream.

  Thinking about the possibility that they could be stranded in Yukitoshi kept Lenis awake for most of that night. The fact that they were all confined to the airship, which meant Captain Shishi couldn’t get rid of him straight away, was small comfort. If anything, it made him all the more nervous.

  Over the next three days the crew kept to their quarters, or gathered in small groups in the galley. As far as Lenis knew, no one had been to the bridge since the captain had ordered the balloons stowed, though he suspected Andrea often crept up on deck. The lookout was definitely unsuited to being confined in a small space, and she wasn’t above complaining about it. The air inside the Hiryû’s hold had long since become stale and close.

  ‘It can’t last forever.’ Namei was sitting on Lenis’s bunk with Aeris curled in her lap. Behind her the porthole was frosted over, reducing the whole world to the inside of the airship’s belly.

  Lenis was brushing Atrum’s fur. ‘But if winter has set in early we’ll be stuck here for months. The Warlord is bound to find us.’ He still didn’t dare voice his worst fear, that when the snow cleared the captain would sell him off and separate him from his sister.

  Namei shivered and drew Aeris close to her. The Bestia let out a soft mew. ‘The captain will think of something.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll let us go down into Yukitoshi?’

  It was Lenis’s turn to shiver. ‘Do you really want to? It’s miserable out there.’ Yukitoshi was definitely one place Lenis didn’t want to go right now.

  Namei wiped at the frosted window to no effect. ‘I like seeing new places. That’s why I agreed to come aboard the Hiryû in the first place. I was told I would see lots of different places and meet lots of interesting people.’

  Lenis paused in his brushing. ‘You agreed to come aboard? I thought you were ...’

  ‘What?’

  Lenis turned his face away so Namei couldn’t see him blushing. ‘A slave.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  Out of the corner of his eye Lenis could see her head cocked to one side. ‘Well, I mean, it’s just ...’ He fumbled on. ‘You’re the cabin girl,’ he finished lamely.

  ‘So?’

  His mind worked furiously to find words that wouldn’t offend her. ‘Well, you have to do all of the worst jobs, like scrubbing pots and washing everyone’s clothes, and mopping the deck. In Pure Land only slaves become cabin boys and girls ...’ Lenis made himself stop. Namei’s face had gone red and she was shaking. He turned to stare at her, convinced he had said exactly the wrong thing.

  Namei started to laugh. Aeris leapt off her lap as she rolled back in the bunk, clutching her sides. Lenis was baffled by her outburst and strangely relieved by the waves of mirth he could feel coming from her.

  ‘Lenis.’ She righted herself and wiped at her streaming eyes. ‘Sometimes I forget how different your life has been. Being a cabin girl is just a duty I chose to take on. It was the only position available, and I desperately wanted to journey on an airship. There’s an airdock at Rôhi, you know? I used to sit and watch the airships coming and going for hours, wishing I could be flying on one of them, no matter where it was going.’

  ‘But I thought,’ Lenis mumbled, ‘I mean ...’ He didn’t know what he had thought. That she was like him?

  Her look sent a wave of shame through him. ‘In Shinzô they only let people from warrior families on airships, Lenis. To actually join the crew of one is considered a great honour. And this is, or was supposed to be, the Warlord’s own airship. I scrub the decks gladly knowing that I am a part of something so important.’

  ‘But my sister and I –’

  ‘You ... came with the airship.’

  Her voice was so soft, and her face so full of pity, that Lenis didn’t want to look at it. Closing his eyes didn’t help either, because he could still sense what she felt towards him. His tears horrified him. What a fool he had been to think there was someone on board the Hiryû like him! He and his sister were the only slaves here. The captain spoke grandly of finding true purposes and living in accordance with some greater Way and of saving Shinzô from the Demons, but the Clemens twins would always be slaves. They weren’t a part of the crew, but a part of the airship on which that crew sailed.

  A dark thought intruded into his mind. With the exception of a mad foreign doctor and a cursed swordsman, none of the crew had shown any interest in helping him save his sister. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember Namei ever asking
how his sister was. Why would she? Namei was a warrior, one of Shinzô’s ruling class, and Lenis and his sister were nothing. The fact that Namei had to stoop below her station to speak to him ...

  ‘I have to go and check on Missy,’ he said shortly and hurried out of the engine room.

  ‘Lenis, wait!’

  He didn’t stop.

  Missy drifted aimlessly down the street. Most of the city’s inhabitants had long since gone to bed, and those who were still awake would hardly venture out in this weather. Missy couldn’t feel the cold. Her physical body was still aboard the Hiryû, which was moored to the airdock rising up in front of her. She stopped and forced herself to go the other way, pushing all thoughts of the airship and her brother away. If Raikô suspected her of trying to return to her body he would drag her back to the temple. At least this way she could be near the Hiryû while she tried to figure out what to do about her situation.

  Missy knew what she was doing was pointless. There was no cure for the Wasteland sickness, and even if there was, she wasn’t going to just stumble across someone who knew it by wandering aimlessly through Shinzô, skimming the minds of random people. If anyone did know how to fight the Wastelands the whole world would know about it. No one would keep information that important a secret. If only she could reason with Raikô, but there was no hope of that. The Totem still possessed great power, despite what the sickness was doing to him, but his miasma-tainted mind flittered so quickly from lucidity and hope to despair and suspicion that it was almost impossible to speak with him.